Counter Information—Counter Commerce—From Behind the Counter

January 30, 2007

McCain vs. McCain

John McCain. He's a straight talker on his Straight Talk Express talking about why he can use the word gook. He's a republican constantly staking out positions disagreeing with Bush, torture for instance, then coming back to the Republican fold with a vengeance against habeas corpus.

Up steps the hardest working man in documentary, Robert Greenwald, of anti Wal-Mart and Fox News fame with his The Real McCain project. I can't say I particularly care for either of the aforementioned documentaries. As agit-prop they're fine and I'm glad he makes them. As movies they're nothing special. Now an LA Times story describes how Greenwald is going after John McCain on YouTube:

instead of creating a full-length film, he is assembling clips of McCain for a series of two-minute Web videos. The idea is to turn McCain's own words against him, spreading the videos through e-mail, blogs and websites.

His first video strings together some McCain statements on Iraq, the Confederate flag, Christian conservatives and same-sex marriage — remarks contradictory enough to suggest that McCain falls short of delivering the "straight talk" that he made a trademark of his first campaign for president, in 2000.

As you may have guessed, I'm cool with this. Especially because he's doing it in non-feature length fashion.